Vast.ai vs Vultr
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Vast.ai and Vultr.
Quick Verdict
3.7/5
Vast.ai
0 reviews
4.0/5
Vultr
0 reviews
Vultr is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.7). P2P GPU marketplace connecting researchers and developers with spare compute capacity. Offers rented GPUs at lower rates than centralized cloud providers, ideal for ML training, rendering, and batch processing. Vultr is a cloud platform offering VPS, bare metal servers, and Kubernetes hosting across 32 data centers worldwide. Built for developers and businesses needing scalable, reliable compute resources with transparent billing.
Vast.ai Rent GPUs from individuals for 2-10x cheaper compute | Vultr High-performance cloud infrastructure with global data centers and competitive pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.7 (0 reviews) | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | usage-based | paid |
| Starting price | From $0.03/mo✓ | From $2.5/mo |
| Best for | ML researchers, rendering studios, and budget-conscious teams running checkpointable training, fine-tune, and batch workloads who are willing to vet hosts themselves | Teams needing low-latency compute across multiple continents, API-first fleets, and self-serve GPU or bare metal with predictable billing |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 1 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 1 GB |
| Storage | — | 10 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | 1 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | — | 100% |
| Data-center count | — | 34 |
| €/vCPU/mo | — | €2.50 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €2.50 |
| Performance | ||
| CPU score (sysbench) | — | 4,100 |
| Disk read (fio) | — | 1,800 MB/s |
| Disk IOPS (4K random) | — | 38,000 |
| Network out | — | 1 Gbps |
| Latency (TTFB) | — | 24 ms |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | Global — distributed hosts | 34 regions across North/South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa (see locations page) |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | hourly billinggpu availableeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter | hourly billingnvme storageipv6ddos protectionbackups includedsnapshotsbare metalgpu availables3 compatibleeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterterraform providerapi accesswindows available |
| Visit Vast.ai → | Visit Vultr → | |
Vast.ai
Pros
- + Cheapest public GPU-hour rates anywhere; per-second billing with no minimum charge
- + Always-on capacity across 81 GPU types and hosts in 52 countries — no 'capacity coming soon'
- + Interruptible bidding and reserved discounts give real pricing levers per workload
- + Dense, useful search filters: reliability score, DLPerf, network speed, host tier
- + SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA attestations at the platform level, per third-party comparisons
Cons
- - No SLA, no owned datacenters, and no recourse when an independent host disappears
- - Host variance is real: measured ±11.7% throughput spread on identical H100 SXM specs
- - Storage bills continue on stopped instances; bandwidth is host-set and can be expensive
- - Interruptible preemption risk demands checkpointing discipline
- - Verification and reliability-score formulas are only partially disclosed
Vultr
Pros
- + Truly global: 34 regions on six continents from one console, one API, one price list - with per-region test IPs published
- + Fully published hourly and monthly pricing from $2.50/mo, mature REST API and Terraform provider
- + 100% network and host-node uptime SLA with credits; standardized platform behavior across every region
- + Broad self-serve catalog: NVMe optimized VMs, NVIDIA/AMD GPUs, bare metal, managed databases/Kafka, S3-compatible object storage, VKE
Cons
- - Price-performance trails European leaders: our measured HF 2GB (Amsterdam) had the slowest NVMe storage of six tested providers at a mid-range price
- - Backups cost 20% of instance price, snapshots bill per GB, Windows and extra egress are add-ons
- - No refunds in the terms of service; support is ticket-only for self-serve customers
- - Overlapping instance families (Cloud Compute, VX1, Optimized) make it easy to pick a stale SKU; region count differs across Vultr's own pages (32/33/34)
Stay in the loop
Get weekly updates on the best new hosting and infrastructure providers, deals, and comparisons.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.